Best movies like The Woodsman

Similar in 83%

Manic (2001)

Plot Summary:

Lyle is filled with rage. After badly beating a classmate during a schoolyard fight, Lyle is committed to a juvenile mental institution in lieu of criminal prosecution. Inside the hospital, Lyle encounters a group of adolescents struggling with a variety of illnesses.

Similar in 85%

The Hunt (2012)

Plot Summary:

A teacher lives a lonely life, all the while struggling over his son’s custody. His life slowly gets better as he finds love and receives good news from his son, but his new luck is about to be brutally shattered by an innocent little lie.

Similar in 80%

Nine Lives (2005)

Plot Summary:

Captives of the very relationships that define and sustain them, nine women resiliently meet the travails and disappointments of life.

Similar in 75%

Precious (2009)

Plot Summary:

Set in Harlem in 1987, Claireece "Precious" Jones is a 16-year-old African American girl born into a life no one would want. She's pregnant for the second time by her absent father; at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother, an angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is chaotic and Precious has reached the ninth grade with good marks and a secret--she can't read.

Similar in 86%

Losing Chase (1996)

Plot Summary:

An intimate and turbulent relationship develops between Chase, a woman recovering from a nervous breakdown and Elizabeth, the caretaker employed to look after her.

Similar in 87%

The Celebration (1998)

Plot Summary:

A grandiose party to celebrate a sixtieth birthday unleashes a family drama with all the lies that conceal horrendous secrets. The eldest son, Christian, stages a showdown with the popular pater familias; his provocative, moving after-dinner speech dislodges all the masks, which finally fall completely as the father-son conflict intensifies and the bewildered guests look on.

Similar in 85%

Behind the Red Door (2003)

Plot Summary:

Set in New York and New England (but filmed in Newfoundland), Behind the Red Door stars Kyra Sedgwick as Manhattan-based photographer Natalie Haddad, who enjoys success with her strangely gloomy and foreboding camerawork. When her agent and best friend Julia (Stockard Channing) arranges for her to accept a lucrative contract with a Boston ad agency, Natalie discovers that she will be working for her own gay brother Roy (Kiefer Sutherland), whom she hasn't seen in a decade. Although Roy is insufferably snobbish and manipulative, he manages to exert a curious control over Natalie, forcing her to confront several disturbing, long-suppressed memories of her past (shown in black-and-white flashbacks). Before the film is over, Natalie is made to realize why Roy's behavior is so overbearing -- and also, the viewer learns just how intimately Julia is involved in the lives of both siblings.

Similar in 77%

Sling Blade (1996)

Plot Summary:

Karl Childers is a mentally disabled man who has been in the custody of the state mental hospital since the age of 12 for killing his mother and her lover. Although thoroughly institutionalized, Karl is deemed fit to be released into the outside world.

Similar in 79%

Sleepers (1996)

Plot Summary:

Two gangsters seek revenge on the state jail worker who during their stay at a youth prison sexually abused them. A sensational court hearing takes place to charge him for the crimes.

Similar in 88%

Mysterious Skin (2004)

Plot Summary:

A teenage hustler and a young man obsessed with alien abductions cross paths, together discovering a horrible, liberating truth.

Similar in 81%

The United States of Leland (2003)

Plot Summary:

A withdrawn young man, Leland Fitzgerald is imprisoned for the murder of a mentally disabled boy, who also happened to be the brother of his girlfriend, Becky. As the community struggles to deal with the killing, Pearl Madison, a teacher at the prison, decides to write about Leland's case. Meanwhile, others affected by the murder, including Becky and her sister, Julie, must contend with their own problems.

Similar in 84%

Short Term 12 (2013)

Plot Summary:

Grace, a compassionate young supervisor at a foster care facility, works with her boyfriend and colleague, Mason, to help at-risk teens. But when a new charge dredges up memories of her own troubled past, Grace's tough exterior begins eroding.

Similar in 90%

Reign Over Me (2007)

Plot Summary:

A man who lost his family in the September 11 attack on New York City runs into his old college roommate. Rekindling the friendship is the one thing that appears able to help the man recover from his grief.

Similar in 87%

Body Shots (1999)

Plot Summary:

The Los Angeles club scene is a place of booze-fueled decadence and debauchery. In a night full of possibilities, eight 20-somethings take to the clubs seeking good times, companionship and maybe a little sex. But in the harsh light of the morning after, their worlds are thrown into a spin of confusion when hungover Sara accuses hard-partying Mike of date rape. Loyalties are tested as each among them is forced to take sides.

Similar in 83%

Little Children (2006)

Plot Summary:

The lives of two lovelorn spouses from separate marriages, a registered sex offender, and a disgraced ex-police officer intersect as they struggle to resist their vulnerabilities and temptations.

Similar in 75%

Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Plot Summary:

The hopes and dreams of four ambitious people are shattered when their drug addictions begin spiraling out of control. A look into addiction and how it overcomes the mind and body.

Similar in 79%

White Oleander (2002)

Plot Summary:

A teenager journeys through a series of foster homes after her mother goes to prison for committing a crime of passion.

Similar in 83%

American Beauty (1999)

Plot Summary:

Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.